Browsing by Author "Honkanen, Niilo"

Mariological research includes the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church, but seldom daily stories of the Ethiopic Senkessar (synaxarion). A great challenge for this study is first to translate the selected original Ge'ez texts, which are in collection of Patrologia Orientalis, then to pick up Marian epithets and adjectives from those texts, and finally comment these Marian epithets. A large and recent source for Ethiopian studies is Encyclopaedia Aethiopica. These hagiographic Marian festival texts give wider perspective to Marian family circle than biblical texts. In daily readings of the Ethiopic Senkessar there also are stories of several miracles in connection with the Virgin Mary or her icons. These miracles do not exist in narratives of the New Testament. About the Covenant of Mercy, between the Mother of God and her son Jesus Christ there is no evidence in the four Gospels, even if there are similar stipulations in the Gospel of St Matthew (25:35-40). Many of Marian dignity epithets, portraying her, are in the beginning of daily Senkessar stories. The Marian attributes like double Virgin and God-bearer belong to interdenominational mariological discussion. Based on this concise study of the selected Ethiopic Senkessar narratives, the concepts of mariology and the Marian attributes seem to be similar in the Anaphora of St Mary and in liturgy of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahido Church. In order to get more complete results, this study needs to be widened at least by other texts of the Ethiopic Senkessar and by other Ethiopian Anaphoras.